XboxParty
The clank of metal against corroded metal brought him back to his harsh reality, the sight of mud and hay bales stacked upon each other just one more rough reminder of the labor-intensive lifestyle he had become accustomed to over the years. He sighed, his squeaky leather boots unnerving him as he trudged towards the barn door to hook the leather saddle dragging down his back up in its rightful position on the wall. The familiar neigh, whinny, bleat, and clatter of hooves against the uneven dirt reminded him why the labor was so important, why he got up at 3 in the morning each day to shuck corn, shovel hay, and smooth dirt. He had to support his family: the troublesome daughter and demanding wife he loved so dearly. And so he strapped the leather saddle on his trusted steed, Valor, and sent off to collect the corn he had planted so long ago. The wind blew against his hair and shirt, ruffled his hat so much he had to grasp onto it to keep it rested on his head. "C'mon there, Valor. Ya got it, buddy. Giddy on up there!" he exclaimed, thwacking on the reins. The horse whinnied, bucking up and taking the poor farmer boy for a vacation in the sky. However, the trip was short-lived as he landed hard in the dirt and the horse disappeared, leaving him to regain his senses in a shroud of dust. "Darned horse. Should've left ya in the barn, ya oaf of darned leather." He reluctantly stood up and brushed the excess dirt off his jeans when he heard a voice behind him. "He will do very nicely. Bring him back with us." The voice sounded to be British, although the man couldn't place it. "What the-?" All of a sudden, he could feel his vision getting blurry, his senses shutting down and his extremities going numb. And then his world faded to black. When he woke up, he found himself faced with another threat entirely: the danger of unfamiliarity. A man and a women dressed in the same attire - black suits, shades, and pointed black loafers- peered over him with unclear intentions. "He doesn't remember anything about us." The confused man looked up at the even-more confusing scene. Two men unknown to him were looming over him, gazing him up and down, presumably scrutinizing him for flaws. "Initiate Basic Training." The robotic voice above him issued the command in a monotonous tone, devoid of all emotion. Little did the farmer know that would enact the most rigorous days of his life. It all hit him dead-on, as harsh and mercilessly as the punch to the gut that was now being delivered full throttle. A swift kick to the abdomen, a backhand to the cheekbone, a right hook to the inside of the pelvis. He was not going to survive. Black dots danced across his vision, teasing his failure with their illusory speckled appearances. And then he let the welcoming security of the unknown wrap him in its unfamiliar wake. When he awoke, time seemed to elude him. Had it been an hour? Three? He wasn't sure; the only thing he knew for certain was wherever he was sitting was dark and his vision could not focus in the dim, flickering candlelight. "My name is Vladimir Shtov. Today, you are going to die." He looked around, discombobulated by the darkness that seemed to engulf him whole. His actions were restrained by something gnarled, something rough that dug into his skin. The air was musty, cold, and the sweat trickling down his forehead did nothing to help his composure. All of a sudden, knuckles against a cheek -- grazed, rough, abraded -- and he lost all focus. Only aware of a high-pitched ringing in his eardrums, he yanked forward to bring his head back up to where it could rest comfortably between his shoulder blades. And then, he heard it. "Do you have prototype?" It was a thick accent, heavy on the tongue-- Russian? He couldn't be sure; all he knew was he was at the utter mercy of this figure he couldn't have any visibility of. "I don't... know... what you talk..." he began, but his throat hitched in his voice. All his breaths came out the same - guttural, raspy, pleading the air thick with the raw stench of flesh and tension for some sense to come back into his hoarse lungs. "I think you know perfectly well. I think you talk, or you die. I don't like to kill, but enemy annoy, enemy can wave bye-bye." The voice, on other terms, could have a very charming intellectual inflection, however, in the circumstances provided, the words echoing through the dark room were the bane of his very existence. "I... don't know...," the prisoner gasped out again. "Perhaps you like sense of agony and sound of crunching bones, hm?" The man didn't have time to react to the sentence just uttered from his captor's mouth, for at that moment, a very sharp pointed edge dug into his kneecap, rotating and bringing out with it cold strings of his bloody flesh. "FINE! FINE! FUCK, I'LL TELL YOU! They specialize in mass weaponry - robotics, nuclear and thermo-nuclear technologies of destruction-- on a scale big enough to obliterate entire countries, continents even," he gasped out, his words catching in his throat in dry and raspy fragments as the need for water rocked his inner core. "Called Evokex?" the voice inquired, seemingly bemused at the hostage's statement. The man nodded slowly, unsure how to respond. Finally, after deep breaths to regain his composure, he spoke. "How do you know?" The man chuckled, a sound the captured never wished to hear again for the remainder of his existence. "I work for company." His world spun around, backwards and forwards and every which way. He grasped the edge of the chair he was so irregularly placed on, struggling against his bonds to feel the edge of the wooden chair, its smooth yet splintery frame. "You... work... for Evokex?" he asked after a moment of discombobulated silence, blood coating his tongue and the inside of his cheek. "You are traitor. I think you die now." The prisoner closed his eyes, waiting for the worst to come, his lids pinched together so tightly spots danced across his vision in speckled fragments of grey and white. All of a sudden, a loud thump was heard. The prisoner was well aware of the hitched, shallow breaths now that emitted from his frail figure. His impending death had not yet arrived. His head rocked forward and backwards, nimble fingers tightly intertwined in his disheveled brown strands. The darkness which had bound him to his captor's mercy for seemingly an interminable time had evaporated, his eyes now adjusting to the dim light of the room he was seemingly contained in. His bonds loosened, fiber by fiber, and collapsed to the ground. He rubbed his raw wrists, red and bloody with strands of flesh interwoven and clearly seen in the skin. He whirled around, confused at the scene unfolding before him. A figure in all black stood above him, holding a jagged knife at its onyx hilt and staring at the pitiful figure below it with a scrutinizing, observatory glare of dilated yellow pupils. It reached a hand out, and he hesitantly took it, leaping onto his feet with the aid of momentum. Before any questions could be asked, the apparent urgency of the situation before them became lucid as an alarm blared in its shrieking tones and flashes of vivid maroon light. He instinctively followed suit behind the mysterious warrior, sticking closely to the edges of the dull gray corridor illuminated by dim flickering artificial light. She turned a corner, he quickly followed suit. She ducked, he did all the same. Together, they were one mobile unit, desperate not to get caught, desperate to escape the autonomic facility they were so seemingly at the mercy of. A bright blue light illuminated the doorway to the side of him, encapsulating his attention. He turned and stepped into the doorway, his rescuer following behind him in regretfully obvious impatience. A man in a suit of crimson and black rusted metal armor wavered up and down in a tank of neon aqua liquid. Bubbles rose up from his mouth, which had a sort of suction cup connected to a tube that spiraled to the boundary of the tank. The escaped prisoner put his hand up to the glass, seeing his distorted reflection, an obvious symbol in his mind he was to be the rescuer. He could feel a tugging at his tattered sleeve, but ignored it altogether with a dismissive wave of his hand. He was to be the rescuer. With a set determination fixed in his previously terrified glance, he raised a fist, prepared to come into contact with a solid glass boundary. But it never came. At that moment, a shrill echo sounded through the cement walls and he was surrounded at every corner and obvious edge by figures in black with malevolent intentions. He would have to think fast. Instinctively, matter seemingly over mind, he pushed past the guards and threw a tiny pebble onto the ground behind him. All he could hear were the thud-thud.... THUD! He fell onto the ground headfirst, a violent spray of crimson splattering onto the clean white tile. A shadowy figure sat at a computer screen, the image of and that was the only image left in his mind, accompanied by the clicking of metal handcuffs onto his dangling limbs, before his world faded to black. His name was XboxParty and he was the wrongly accused. His name was XboxParty and he was the unknown hero. His name was XboxParty, and as blackness engulfed his senses followed by the clanking metal of handcuff on limb, he realized he would awaken for his resurgence once again.